1. Thus one strives for lasting fame
And deeds whose benefits never end

2. Not all can attain excellence, nor
Can every seeker find guidance that leads

3. For time has changes that divert
Resolves or undo what's relied upon

4. No mortal attains what he wants
Without aid and help from a savior

5. How many zealous are deprived of their goal
While the hesitant, through ease, succeeds

6. Truly, he who takes riches as the
Aim of a life spent in toil

7. Thoughtless that he's most deserving of
Spending fleeting things on lasting ones

8. No good or permanence but in
Righteous deeds, a treasure counted

9. In both abodes for its bearer,
Like a lofty celestial sphere

10. But the most pleasing to God
Is that which leads to and relies on Him

11. That knowledge which prophets bequeathed
Upon companions who were guided when guided

12. May God enable a man who preserves it
And conveys it to one seeking guidance

13. The call of the Chosen never leaves
The Sunna's keepers without bearing witness

14. What an exalted method it is
Pride's diadem is bound upon it

15. It's precious breaths from the Elect
Whose affection made them a support

16. Translated from God's presence and religion
It is guidance and uprightness

17. Ways by which none who follow them stray
While all else is misguidance or heresy

18. It clarified what God revealed to us
Of a Book whose bounty never ends

19. So the good of religion and life forever
Flows through it, steady and continuous

20. O may God guard men who struck
The necks of injustice for it and strove

21. Expended themselves to obtain it
And emulated its traces and verified

22. Carried it from predecessors
And protected it from extremists who deviated

23. Each a runner in a field witnessed
By the unique, brilliant morning sun

24. God's proof upon creation, none
Can flee what any of them ruled

25. Malik son of Anas son of
Malik of Abu Amir the jurist

26. Star of Madina rising in its
Horizon sixty years giving guidance

27. With some seventy imams attesting
Whenever he gave a legal ruling

28. After studying under ten of them
From age seventeen and on he recounts

29. God smoothed paths of guidance
In his authentic, beneficial Muwatta

30. None composed its like in religious law
So it's the exemplar and relied upon

31. From pearly prophetic narrations
One hundred thousand selected

32. For forty years he verified it
Seeking what's most ideal in religion

33. Then when it was complete he tested
Himself - was the Hereafter his aim?

34. So he went to cast it in the sea
While no cities were flooded by it

35. Many who imitated his deed
Were as if born without what they were born with

36. Sufficient is Ibn Idris' declaration
While he is not one for baseless claims

37. No book on earth nearer in rank
To the Quran - on it one relies

38. You see the Criterion a firm pillar
Around which it revolves and orbits

39. Not excessive toward the zealous
If his world was offered to buy it

40. Better than separations of the staff
Like intestines which one desires to examine

41. A forbidding fortress for one seeking refuge
A billowing sea for the scholar

42. In its prefacing is its name
Sorrow made smooth or paved

43. Parts of it spread for unmarried women
When published, easily born

44. Its licensed songs dear adornments
Uncover them, shining white pearls

45. From it like an echo from one articulating
Or a form with traits witnessed

46. Today it's been published by a press
In it a imprint of its publisher, excellent

47. The truthful king has revealed it
In the kernel of civilizing, a knot tied

48. A king whose rule left none
Of its subjects without envy

49. Roused in caring for them eyes that slumbered
And slept each gloating eye

50. A state renewed civilization with
Knowledge and justice - why shouldn't it be joyous?

51. Our verdure continues to live through it
As a body lives through a soul

52. May God eternize its truthful one
And suffice him - his command was supported

53. In printing the Muwatta witness
To its merits and lasting pride

54. O people, the purest of springs is unveiled
So compete for it and give thanks

55. And know the moment when completed
What day, month, and year - proclaim

56. Date the Thursday era, date
The excellent publication of the Muwatta born